For Release: July 3, 2003Contact: David Almasi at (202) 507-6398 x106
or [email protected]

Black Group Calls on
Jesse Jackson to Put Money Where is Mouth Is and Sponsor a Black
NASCAR Driver

Jackson Received
a Quarter-Million in NASCAR Donations by Claiming Blacks are
Excluded from Stock Car Racing

Activists with the African-American
leadership network Project 21 are demanding that Jesse Jackson
support a promising black driver who currently lacks the financial
sponsorship needed to advance in the sport.

Jackson has publicly complained that
black drivers have been excluded from NASCAR. In 1999, according
to the National Legal and Policy
Center, Jackson told a conference attended by NASCAR's then-CEO
"The fact of the matter is there is frustration because
of exclusion. We were qualified to play baseball before 1947.
We are qualified to race cars now."

Since then, Jackson's organizations have
received a reported $250,000 from NASCAR and NASCAR has pursued
minority outreach efforts.

On June 24, a board member of Jackson's
Rainbow/PUSH Coalition renewed the attack on NASCAR, publicly
charging that auto racing remains "the last bastion of white
supremacy" in professional sports.

Given this continuing dissatisfaction,
Project 21 is now calling on Jesse Jackson to take the money
given to his operations by NASCAR and use it to directly support
an up-and-coming black driver -- a driver, for example, such
as Herbie Bagwell, Jr.

Bagwell, who has raced since 1988, was
recently offered a race team for the upcoming Busch North Series
after posting good testing times at the New Hampshire International
Speedway. The sum that NASCAR gave Jackson, approximately $250,000,
could essentially finance a driver like Bagwell throughout the
six-race series.

Bagwell told the racing web site catchfence.com that he
has not been contacted by any of Jackson's groups, but he has
been contacted by NASCAR and encouraged to compete. Speaking
on his race and racing, Bagwell told catchfence.com that he shrugs
off people's pessimism: "I'm passionate about auto racing.
So those who want to deter me from this goal had their words
fall of deaf ears."

"As a devoted fan of NASCAR, I am
troubled by Jesse Jackson's latest exploits," says Project
21 member Reginald Jones. "I never once have paused to consider
the racial make-up of the drivers or other fans. Like white fans
of the NBA, racial proportions are irrelevant to me. NASCAR is
a juicy target because of its southern heritage and vast financial
resources. Fans should be outraged by NASCAR's cowardice in the
face of Jackson's latest hustle. People like me who have supported
the sport do not appreciate our money going to him."

Jackson's organizations have acknowledged
that sponsorship of drivers is the key issue. As Project 21 member
Deroy Murdock wrote in a May column
for National Review Online, Charles S. Farrell, director of Jackson's
Manhattan-based Rainbow Sports, has said: "No one has physically
come up and said, 'You're black. You cannot race. But the lack
of sponsorship is tantamount to saying, 'No, you cannot race
in NASCAR.'"

Project 21 director David Almasi agrees
with the diagnosis but wonders why Jackson won't use the money
his organization received from NASCAR to fix the problem. "What
Bagwell and other black drivers need is sponsorship money. That's
not a civil rights issue. Jesse Jackson has been given the resources
to help these drivers get to the track. When they start driving
and winning, the sport will integrate faster than it already
is now. Herbie Bagwell is not the only black racer out there,
but he has the ambition to be a future champion."

NASCAR's gifts to Jackson have been a
matter of national controversy since the Virginia-based National
Legal and Policy Center publicly called upon NASCAR to sever
its financial support for Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH organization
several months ago.